Biden announced $1.3B in new weapons and economic assistance to Ukraine, bans Russian ships from U.S.

President Biden has pledged an additional $1.3 billion in weapons and economic assistance to Ukraine, vowed to seek even more funds from Congress and banned Russian ships — including from Boston Harbor.

The Russian president is betting that “Western unity will crack,” Biden said in a Thursday address, “and once again we’re going to prove him wrong.”

Of the $1.3 billion announced, $800 million of that will go toward weapons — including heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition and drones — and $500 million will go toward direct economic support to Ukraine’s government. That now makes for $3.4 billion Biden has sent since the invasion began.

“To modernize Teddy Roosevelt’s famous advice,” Biden said, “sometimes we will ‘speak softly and carry a large javelin,’ because we’re sending in a lot of those as well.”

That’s $1 billion in U.S. economic support to Ukraine since the invasion began in February, far short of the $7 billion per month Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country needs, but more than Americans might like to bear, according to a recent AP poll that found waning support for U.S. involvement.

Biden also announced that all Russian-affiliated ships are banned from U.S. ports and shores — that includes not only those ships flying under a Russian flag, but any “owned or operated by a Russian interest.”

Canada announced its own ban on Russian ships on March 1 with the European Union following suit on April 5 as one of the six “pillars” of its fifth sanction package against Russia.

The ban on ships appeared to be largely symbolic. Russian ships unload only a tiny sliver of cargo in the U.S., which Colin Grabow, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, guessed was mainly “tankers transporting Russian oil which is now banned anyway.”

No Russian ships make port in Massachusetts, as South Boston’s Paul W. Conley Container Terminal receives shipments almost exclusively from China and western Europe through two of the world’s largest shipping alliances and companies, according to a spokeswoman for operator Massport.

Those are Ocean Alliance, comprised of shippers from China; and the Switzerland-based MSC — the Mediterranean Shipping Company — which itself halted shipping in and out of Russia, excepting essential humanitarian aid, on March 1.

Russian liquefied natural gas tankers are also not landing in Massachusetts, as the Herald reported last month. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has showed no LNG imports from Russia since at least 2016.

As for smaller boats, John Pappalardo, CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, said he “can report there are no Russian fishing vessels operating in our fisheries.”

Herald wire services contributed to this report.